Teras Kasi Archive
Thread: ever wondered who the first TKM was or how VK's got into the game?
chrisdarebel
Thu Aug 05, 2004 10:21 am
#40
yeah i agree. do not say you are the first because no one has any idea nor can keep track of every player. just say you mastered very early. That way we dont have people thinking they are gods and they own the damn profession.
/agree
--- ChrisD ---
---- Starsider ----
I was the first originalcomposite ranger..... I was the RED one!
GO GO COMPOSITE RANGERS!
Iasma
Thu Aug 05, 2004 10:52 am
#41
konik: I do not belive that one guild/person got VKs and Force of Will into the game, and I hope you got enough sense to figure that out yourself soon...
You sound like my grandparents talking about the good old days, now they are both sitting in wheelchairs and watching animal planet... you get the point?
konik
Thu Aug 05, 2004 11:11 am
#42
what i cant understand is why is everyone having such a hard time with this?
Taigei
Thu Aug 05, 2004 2:12 pm
#43
Beta 3 - Prewipe.
Bria is the only server and there were three betas who made the ridiculously hard climb to through UA Brawler to TK by banding together to form the dojo Holo once mentioned in talking about UA vs Ranged PvP. That's Noh Dojo, and I was the one who invited people to band together so we could focus on TK testing and development. So, me, Zeladrijn and Ariakas69 became the first TKMs, and anyone making earlier claims should tell how they became TKMs and when (the 'how' is important, as Betas know what was possible at the time).
My work included criticism on PvE balance, which, right around that time, the devs had defined as losing against even cons 50% of the time. People trying to advance Brawler know that, with the exception of Trandos, even cons were nearly impossible to take down. At best, there were only a few people I don't know about who made it past TKN. I posted aboutUA/TK imbalance inPvE, but from the responses of other combat class testers, it became clear that it was only UA/TK that was being so sorely against even cons. I realized that the deficiency was due to the lack a variablity in damage - that UA/TK was the only combat profession whose damage was never augemented. So I said so on the boards. I recall is was about 10 days later that Ariakas and I looted the first VKs. I looted first, from a Pirate camp on a beach on Corellia, and Ariakas looted... The next day, I believe, from a Jawa Warlord on Tat. But Ariakas had the wehrewithall to try them, while I saw the VK as a weapon, and never thought it would be for a UA/TK. Ariakas PMs me and asks if I'd seen any 'vibroknucklers,' I said 'Yeah, I have one.' He asks if I've used it yet - I hadn't, of course, what are they? "Weapons we can use."
NO WAY!
Yes way.
Betas who've contributed to development of the game know what it's like - you post ideas, you try to garner support, and even when the changes are made, there is rarely any clear credit as to whose idea it was, or who was instrumental in making the change. So it comes down to who posted what, when, and whether the change was made in the game. And, sometimes, obscure posts without player support get implimented.
In SWG,TK were clearly Unarmed specialists. Other Brawler-based professions were clearly the Armed melee. So even hinting that UA/TK should have weapons ran counter to the professions concept: What about UNARMED don't you get? And, as little player response as my post got (and there never were any others remotely suggesting weapons for UA/TK), one poster outright boohooed the idea. VKs were, absolutely, a dev creation - I never said anything about what weapons I thought UA/TK should be allowed, just that every other combat profession (working at the time) felt about balanced in PvE because they used weapons.
FOW: My contribution to FOW was to have remaining HAM equalize on success. My argument: You FOW, your HAM is so low that the spawn that incapped you aggros and incaps you again, rinse, repeat. Like VKs, I was the only who posted an idea that, soon after, became part of the game.
To me it's just cool to see a few ofmy ideas go live, because I feel I've made a valuable contribution. Of course, I've supported a few stupid things. But my best work is at teraskasi.net - the DPS and Statscalculators. That's hard work. People use the DPS calc every day, and maybe 5 people have ever bothered to say 'cool!' or 'thanks!' or 'nice work.' Are we, as a community, so resistant to having the least bit of gratitude or respect for the actual individuals who have contributed? Is it so much easier to say "I'm grateful for the contribution of alll those people who..." rather than to actually use someone's name? How many people know the story behind the Moraj Memorial?
If a claim of 'being first' seems egotistical, it wasn't. I know Konik, I can assure you he was sharing some trivia he felt some people would like to know - he sends guildmail frequently with such info. Konik wasn't even talking about himself, and he learned those stories from me, the one who was there when the first Spitting Rawl was unleashed.
It is no accident the TK has been the best balanced profession since release. Betas worked hard on that. In a time when no one wanted to do the work to become TKM, three people did. And they unleashed attacks on stunned players who didn't even know to kite because they'd never had to run from another player. Ariakas, THE Trando TKM who first donned sunshade and robe, was famous for his prewipe krayt hunts. Surely, some of you remember those. He made such an impressiont, that I recall not being able to turn a corner without running into a Trando TK (many with with sunshade and robes) during open Beta 3. The impact we three made during prewipe was very likelya significant factor in the resulting huge population of TKs during the last leg of Beta. We were the TKMs, and people got to see what TK actually was ingame from watching us. No doubt, players came into the game, looked at the profession choices and wanted TK with no prior knowledge of other players. Ultimately, though, the huge population of TKs meant that the devs were getting TONS of feedback - and there's were the TK vs Ranged arguments begin, and, I believe, when Atama would have started his stink about the out-of-range issue (I don't recall any of the prewipe TKM's talking about an out-of-range issue).
Atama
Thu Aug 05, 2004 4:28 pm
#44
Whatever contributions you were making must have been in emails to the devs, because I don't recall any of that talk on the forums. And I was around since Beta 2, though admittedly I wasn't a trando TK at first. (Actually when I joined there was no combat in SWG, all you could do was run around a bare Tatooine.) Anyways, I didn't make TKM in beta but I was a TK when it wasn't popular yet (actually melee in particular wasn't popular). The reason I made a stink about melee is because nobody (yourself included) was speaking up for it at the time, not because everyone was.
Taigei
Thu Aug 05, 2004 10:08 pm
#45
Huh. You're half right, in a sense: Ariakas, Zeladrijn and myself knew that our posts wouldn't garner much community support because no one else had the experience with the profession to be able to comment. So, we were really writing to the devs. The three of us were good about stating the issue, backing with data, and proposing solutions. Causing a stink wasn't our way, except when Ariakas blasted the devs for releasing the game so full of bugs, but that wasn't related to TK. Near the end of prewipe Beta 3, Zeladrijn made a concerted effort to duel master-level marksmen, and the devs took a public interest in TK vs Ranged PvP results. I think that was the only time Holo posted on one of our threads, and he later mentioned the dojo and the tests in one of his reports (our findings were that whoever got the first hit won at master level).
I'd be thrilled to find anyone who remembered our posts from prewipe. You're right - there wasn't much intersest in melee, to a lot of people it wasn't Star-Warsy, and shooting things with blasters was fun and a whole lot easier to advance. So, no, there wasn't 'talk' in the form of discussions until there were more TKs in postwipe. But to suggest those posts weren't made because you don't recall them? Come on, Atama. You're talking to the guy who made those posts and slamming another Beta. I'm not one of those who signed up toplay and one-up the neighbor's kids, I came to test and contribute to the development of the game, Teräs Käsi in particular. You remember how different it was postwipe Beta 3: Before then we had a high percentage of serious testers who cared about the quality of the game, largely because it was Star Wars. Postwipe we were inundated with selfish people who came to play, people who lied about their age to get in and brought all their bad habits from other games. And yet, I still recall how excited we all were then when the chat room hit 1000.
Even though I don't associate your name with the drive to play and test melee in postwipe, I recall that there WAS a drive. I seem to recall there was a rallying cry, constant posts encouragingpeople test melee,some posts admonishing the community for slacking off on melee testing. That sound right? Is that the stink you're talking about? You say you made a concerted effort to do so, and I believe you. In fact, I was certainly grateful at the time that there was a drive to focus attention on melee, even though I was selfishly interested in TK and didn't test other melee professions myself. Thank you. Without that effort melee would have been in a sore state on release, and there aren't many peopleleft whoknowit was the players, not the devs, who focussed attention on melee so late in development. Not many people at all who know enough to have any sense of gratitude for our work, but presume it was all part of the game and the developers alone.
vortexala
Thu Aug 05, 2004 11:18 pm
#46
Taigei wrote:
Not many people at all who know enough to have any sense of gratitude for our work, but presume it was all part of the game and the developers alone.
If they do, so what? Granted, it's a nice bit of trivia(although the way it was presented and subsequent replies from the original poster could've been handled much better) but in the end, what's it really matter?
You were the first TKs? You had the first set of VKs? You helped focus development on certain abilities? Great. You know you did it, what anyone else thinks or knows shouldn't really matter.
You're not the only ones who've put a ton of effort into a profession since Betaand not get noted y'know 
Siaro
Fri Aug 06, 2004 12:48 am
#47
I think the reason why everyone is having a hard time with this is because those are big claims andsomewhat hard to take at face value. From your posts its still not clear to me that you, your friends and your guild have been around since beta, Have you?
I guess the question really is, how do you know these people were the first and that its because of them that we have VKs? Not the reason why they added them but how do you know that it was because of you and your friends that they were added.
Cango
Fri Aug 06, 2004 2:18 am
#48
lordkinjo wrote:I'm going to say something that might be taken offencively but I'm not trying to be rude or disrespect anyone but I have to call BS on something. I have been playing since launch and started grinding TKA about a week after the game launched when I reached novice....I have had a set of VK since I started grinding any of the unarmed tree. I had a set all the way through master brawler and all the way through TKM. There is no way that you who are saying it is because of you that we have VK's are telling the truth because they have been there since launch
Read the thread.
BETA
*BETA*
B
E
T
A
As in, BEFORE THE GAME WAS LAUNCHED
Atama
Fri Aug 06, 2004 3:15 am
#49
It used to be that the reply to ANY complaint about melee, no matter how justified that complaint was, was "don't bring a knife to a gun fight". 
Thankfully the devs didn't see it that way. I'm glad they didn't make 5 whole professions worthless by saying that melee is intended to be a curiosity and not a valid form of combat.
Everyone who was in beta and actually CONTRIBUTED something other than wanting to get in on the game early deserves some credit.
Thankfully the devs didn't see it that way. I'm glad they didn't make 5 whole professions worthless by saying that melee is intended to be a curiosity and not a valid form of combat.
Everyone who was in beta and actually CONTRIBUTED something other than wanting to get in on the game early deserves some credit.
Taigei
Fri Aug 06, 2004 3:04 pm
#50
"Don't bring a knife to a gun fight." Do you remember when Holo said that? I chalk that up to a moment of frustration, but, still, that was disheartening. That was a HUGE fight to get balance for melee in PvP vs ranged. I have to wonder if it was the devs not giving up, or the Betas fighting for melee equality being such a massive pain in the butt. That must have felt like a box full of Bantha suppositories to the devs. And just in time, too, since release was so much sooner than we anticipated. I feel the same about the true contributors, Atama. I tell the stories of some where it's appropriate, and there are some unforgettables like Leia4loot. Heh, end of Beta parties - getting drunk and throwing yourself into the sarlacc pit. The End of Time Dancers and endless fireworks at the Moraj memorial. We'll never see squill spawn as it was at the Moraj, lol.
Good times.
I wouldn't mind hearing some Beta stories.
I know exactly what you're saying, Vortexala, about the way the claim was peresented: No proof. That just invites cynicism and critical questions. That's what's needed to find out if such a claim is bogus, and I'd certainly expect that from a seasoned Beta. Most of the posts here, particularly your's, Atama's and Springbok's, are asking for baking to the claim. The follow up posts by Konik are pretty clear to me. It may help to know that Konik is easily among the most excellent of people in the game. His critical insight into the profession, devotion to creating a challenging and rewarding TK environment for TKs through TKO, his tireless efforts in diplomacy between guilds and Jedi factions, and on and on are simply stunning. This is the kind of guy you want running your guild. I wish we had him in Beta. More to the point of his posts here, he is a person of the highest integrity, and, IMHO, he felt his integrity was being questioned. I can look at the thread and see that it's the claim that's being questioned, not a personal attack.
Konik has shared something he thought some people would like, and that's all there is to it.
[Vortexala] "You're not the only ones who've put a ton of effort into a profession since Beta and not get noted y'know "
I'd LOVE to see a list of credits which named the Beta contributors and their key accomplishments. Total pipe dream, I know. But if Betas don't talk about these things, who will? And one person's talking about their experiences and contributions in no way infringes on others to do the same. Correspondents, such as yourself, become known for what you do now. Correspondent is a daunting duty, and players who take up the call are held in very high regard with gratitude from the community they serve. In time, the community will forget, and it would be nice to retain a badge of service or something which speaks for itself. Not having that, who will tell the story of your contributions, your concern for the community of players, and your struggle to put the wishes of your consituency before your own? I hope you will. To me, these are stories worth telling and hearing, because they reinforce the best efforts and ideals of the community.
Moraj is the best universal example. When I talk to TKO recruits and members about Zeladrijn, Ariakas, Sinjin, THX, myself and a few others at appropriate times, it is the same way I talk about Moraj. There is usually a landmark or object that you can take a person to and say what happened on that spot, why that memorial is there, why that object is in the guild hall. The stories enforce ideals and create a sense of history - belonging to something bigger than ourselves, with obligations to honor those who came before with rituals, to work with those around you positively and productively, to serve those who come after by guiding them, passing on the histories of the guild and living a story worth telling.
It was about 16 months ago when I conceived Noh Dojo which became the first TK Dojo. It was near realease that I conceived TKO as a player-run POI which would bring life to TK for the players who were hungry for history, honor and tradition where there is precious little in SW canon. Konik has taken this concept, energetically and astutely, forward, and his instincts are correct - start telling the story to the broader community: Share what we have and invite people in.
Sooner or later, we will divide the guild on Bria into warring factions: The Followers of Palawa (TKO-FP) and the Minions of Xendor (TKO-MX). Anyone who is such a fan for TK that they know Xendor and Palawa doesn't need to hear the stories to understand what this is about, but most people will need to know the histories to understand why we're creating the factions and engaging in war. This is an example of how TKO is bringing TK history to life for players.
Only Jedi and TK have any sense of history in Star Wars. And I have no intention of waiting for the devs or a writer to create our story and get it in game.
Not for my $15.
lordkinjo
Sat Aug 07, 2004 3:31 am
#51
konik wrote:
lordkinjo wrote:
I'm going to say something that might be taken offencively but I'm not trying to be rude or disrespect anyone but I have to call BS on something. I have been playing since launch and started grinding TKA about a week after the game launched when I reached novice....I have had a set of VK since I started grinding any of the unarmed tree. I had a set all the way through master brawler and all the way through TKM. There is no way that you who are saying it is because of you that we have VK's are telling the truth because they have been there since launch
you know what i was going to let this thread die, but i dont like being told ive been discredited or that i am talking BS the first post that was made is (now try to bare with me when i say the word) FACT.
i had this sent to me ingame too by another person that didnt know what they were talking about too:
The first TK's didnt involve you or your guild, think back to beta 1...You or your guild had nothing to do with VK's...VK's were in early beta also. It was a Dev's Idea. Your gloating is not appreciated. There were FOUR original TK's consisting of myself, Icefalkon, Jenii'ca and Cloud on this very server, waaaaaay back early in beta. Just a useful piece of information.
now who's BSing who...
I would normally let this type of thread die too but now you'e pissed me off. (now try to bare with me when I say these words) YOU ARE FULL OF $HIT!!!! neither you or your guild had anything to do with ANYTHING in the development of this game in ANY way, so listen up Al Gore jr. The only thing you and your guildies contribute to the game is you're $14.95 you pay a month to play. The people that you say were the first TKM's in the game after launch may very well be the first onse but to say you guys are why we have VK's is a bigger lie than Bill not sleeping with Monica was so don't even try it
lordkinjo
Sat Aug 07, 2004 3:44 am
#52
Cango wrote:
lordkinjo wrote:
I'm going to say something that might be taken offencively but I'm not trying to be rude or disrespect anyone but I have to call BS on something. I have been playing since launch and started grinding TKA about a week after the game launched when I reached novice....I have had a set of VK since I started grinding any of the unarmed tree. I had a set all the way through master brawler and all the way through TKM. There is no way that you who are saying it is because of you that we have VK's are telling the truth because they have been there since launch
Read the thread.
BETA
*BETA*
B
E
T
A
As in, BEFORE THE GAME WAS LAUNCHED
You should go back and do some re-reading bubthe original post wasn't talking about beta it encinuates after launch...IE..krayt hunts and what not...he said himself that in beta he remembered running around a bare tatooine. Beta got brought up by people calling BS to his claim about being the reason we hav VK's because they were informing him that they didn't make it so we had them because they were here in beta. please know what you're talking about half-eit before you post...JK about the half-wit part : )